WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS

Translator/Editor: Coughing Baby

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◈ The Little Prince in the Ossuary

00047

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#Signs (3), Atascadero

For soldiers, even meals are orders. To keep combat readiness up, you eat when you can. Meal time was split into two shifts.

Sudden as it was, Gyeoul prepared his meal without complaint. Hunger was a "Bad Status." He'd never been in a situation like this, and he wanted to stay at peak condition. All he needed was to get the calories in.

What they tore into were simplified First Strike Rations. Gyeoul was pulling out an energy bar when Ensign Jeffrey, who had been mixing tuna with mayonnaise, said something.

"That thing, doesn't it look exactly like a squashed lump of poop?"

Military rations don't bother with aesthetics. The energy bar's shape could pass for a flattened rice cake if you squinted, or a lumpy turd if you didn't. Gyeoul set it back down. Jeffrey grinned from ear to ear.

"What do you think? The cockroach's revenge!"

"......"

Joking when afraid is a veteran's badge. This, though, just seemed like immaturity. Gyeoul sighed and chewed his sandwich. Barely-there, salty beef.

The meal was brief. Jeffrey sucked on his hydration bladder and talked. "If you ask me, that signal wasn't sent by a person. Some kind of... what's it called, automated transceiver? Maybe one of those broke down. The jamming too, probably."

"Still, we can't ignore it. Our mission is reconnaissance. We also need to find traces of the advance unit."

At Gyeoul's answer, Jeffrey muttered with an uneasy look. "In horror movies, whenever someone picks up a signal like that, they always end up dead."

"......"

Nonsense. Was this guy actually that immature?

After the meal, the radio operator tried to reach the unidentified unknown.

"This is unsettling. At least we're not dealing with a broken machine."

A cold sweat had broken across the radio operator's face by the time the exchange ended.

"Every time we transmit, there's a response. The broadcast momentarily cuts out and the jamming intensifies. A moment later their signal resumes, but now it includes the message I sent."

"What the hell does that mean?"

Ensign Jeffrey looked baffled. Gyeoul asked, "Anything else unusual?"

"Uh, well. I'm not entirely certain, but..."

Gyeoul nodded, and the radio operator offered something more unsettling.

"The signal seems to get stronger the more we communicate."

"Meaning the target is approaching?"

"Put it that way, yes, that'd be the most likely explanation."

Rising signal strength meant decreasing distance. The mood grew heavy. Gyeoul suggested, "Actually, this works in our favor. Let's keep contact open and prepare a proper welcome."

Jeffrey pointed to the open area outside the main gate. "Fire concentration point around there? We've got cover on this side."

"Works for me."

Soldiers moved briskly. They were relocating the lobby's booby traps to the exterior. The soldiers who'd set up the Claymore mines dragged the conducting wire out. Clamp a clacker onto it and they could detonate remotely, on cue.

Like every public facility, there was a flagpole in the center of the open area. Jeffrey ordered the soldiers to bring the flag down. No point dishonoring the Stars and Stripes when the situation didn't call for it. A formality, but the soldiers carried it out without complaint. The American flag came down along with the California Republic flag. Jeffrey folded both neatly and tucked them away. Souvenirs, apparently.

In the meantime, the radio operator kept at it.

"My messages are being echoed back." Tense, clipped.

The unknown entity was copying and rebroadcasting everything the radio operator said. On top of that, the static was growing louder and the signal stronger. Before long it was coming through even without holding the radio up. Loud enough to grate. Jeffrey grumbled, "Is it messing with us, or is this actually a ghost? We can't even tell how close it's gotten..."

Closer, that much was certain. Not knowing how much remained was what made it unnerving.

How long did they wait? Across the parking lot, beyond the fence, a blurred shape passed quickly between a temporary structure and the conifers.

"Something's there."

Not human, at least. Gyeoul raised his rifle.

"What? Where?"

The entire platoon snapped to in an instant. Soldiers peering forward from behind cover, only their barrels exposed.

"Where is it?"

Jeffrey's voice was tight. Gyeoul gauged the distance. Visual range estimation received a correction from Firearms Mastery.

"Twelve o'clock, approximately 120 meters out. Behind the second temporary structure from the left."

Thirty-odd barrels shifted slightly, all pointing where Gyeoul had indicated.

The radio had gone haywire. Gyeoul switched it off. Normal communication was impossible anyway, and the whole platoon was right here. Jeffrey and the soldiers followed his lead.

The target wasn't showing itself. Instead, small things began crawling over the fence. The soldiers were unsettled.

"...Those look sort of like babies?"

Not sort of. They were babies. Infected ones, to be precise. Gyeoul's eyesight let him see them clearly. Their bodies were twisted all over, as if burned.

A normal baby couldn't have climbed that fence. These did. Unable to even stand, they hauled themselves over on enhanced strength alone. They thrashed on top of the railing, then dropped. Rolled down the grassy slope.

Wail- Wail-

Strange cries. However much they wailed, no mother came. Pitch-black babies scrambled forward faster than expected, like short-legged dogs at a dead sprint. They spread out as they approached, tilting their oversized heads from side to side, showing the characteristic mutant behavior. Teeth chattering in rapid succession.

"Oh, Jesus. Just keeps getting worse."

Someone muttered.

The mutant babies were trickier targets than they looked. Small, for one thing, and they occasionally leaped like frogs. They also crawled under vehicles.

Whatever was lurking behind them was probably a new special mutant, a type Gyeoul had never seen before. The babies themselves were, in their own way, a special category. The whole thing felt like a test.

"Terrorist bastards. Sending out children is a violation of the rules of engagement. Fire!"

They looked like babies, which made it uncomfortable, but they couldn't be allowed to close in. Jeffrey's order came down.

Ratatat! Ratatat!

The machine gun opened up first. The US Army had been pushing suppressor distribution lately, so even the support weapon was surprisingly quiet.

Gyeoul conserved ammo. Kneeling stance. Precisely aimed, one shot per target. Even so, far more efficient than the soldiers spraying bursts. Thud. Thud. Thud. With each trigger pull, red blood spattered across the parking lot and the open ground.

Crack! A baby hit in the head tumbled through the air, a furrow carved from forehead to crown. Like someone had gone at it with an ice cream scoop.

"Damn! I'm going to have nightmares!"

The support gunner swapped magazines, the assistant gunner's hands making the reload instant, then aimed at the mutant babies near the flagpole. The drum magazine held 200 rounds. Indiscriminate.

Past the parking lot, the open area offered no more cover. Mutant babies entering the line of fire were torn apart, as though fed through an invisible grinder. One shredded baby dropped onto the grass, half its body gone. Unformed organs spilled out. A single twitch, then still.

"God, God, God, God......"

Right beside Gyeoul, someone called on God without end.

It wasn't a pleasant experience for Gyeoul either. Unlike spectators from some other world, he couldn't receive this as morbid entertainment.

"Claymores! Fire seven and eight!"

Jeffrey's sharp cry. A soldier gripped both clackers and squeezed.

The ground shook. Each Claymore scattered 700 steel balls across a 120-degree arc. With the kill zones overlapping, 1,400 steel balls crossed paths at once. The rain-soaked ground erupted in a grey haze.

Overkill. Anything it hit left no shape behind. Just two of the eight, and the entire open area was swept clean.

While everyone else fell quiet, Gyeoul kept shooting. He emptied one magazine, then another. Everyone watched in confusion, not sure what the young officer was still firing at.

"We lost it."

Jeffrey asked, "Lost what?"

"You got distracted and forgot. What were we watching for in the first place?"

"...Right. Damn."

Smack. Jeffrey's hand hit his own helmet. He stood there a moment, quietly cursing his own stupidity. The soldiers were in the same position, every one of them. They'd all just stood there while the unknown enemy slipped away. Jeffrey groaned, then asked glumly, "Did you get a look at it?"

"Just one leg. The shrubs and trees blocked the rest."

"Did you hit it?"

"Definitely. Can't say how much damage it took, but I put more than a full magazine into it."

"Good. Good thing you're here. You're earning that medal of yours..."

He asked Gyeoul to describe what he'd seen as precisely as possible. From the initial silhouette and the single visible leg, they could estimate a rough size. The conclusion was, as expected, a special mutant.

"Smaller than Grumble, but it's no ordinary mutant."

Under the soldiers' cover, Gyeoul and Jeffrey pushed past the parking lot to look for the creature's trail. The bloodstains and crushed grass ended where the asphalt began. His rank-4 Tracking skill had nothing more to work with. The rain still falling was the problem. The blood trail didn't continue, the diluted red just running off into the gutters.

Still, they'd learned one thing. The new mutant had low or no physical resistance.

"Where did this thing run off to... Searching the city is going to be a burden."

The missing advance unit members might have gone into the city chasing the unidentified signal too. Gyeoul said to the deliberating Jeffrey, "We may not even need to search right now."

"Huh?"

Instead of explaining, Gyeoul switched his radio back on. Static poured through. No message was broadcasting, but the intensity was immense. The same as when the creature had been at its closest, maybe stronger. He listened in silence, and became certain.

"This thing is still hunting us."

The roles of hunter and hunted might have swapped.

A quiet moment. Rain dripping from lowered barrels.

"Bold of it... who's hunting who?"

Jeffrey smiled.

"Took a beating and ran, and it's still hanging around? Good. Saves us the trouble of chasing it."

The words were barely out when the sound of chain-link rattling came from somewhere far off. Violent rattling. Everyone looked in the same direction. The state hospital's isolation ward. The sound of shattering glass followed. The creature had gone inside, no question, because the jamming suddenly weakened.

"Damn it. This thing has no intention of coming quietly."

According to the briefing, the CDC had confined 1,200 infected mutants in the isolation ward. If those got loose, it would be hell on earth. They'd run out of ammo before they ran out of stamina. Gyeoul eased Jeffrey's worry.

"We'll be fine. Every section is locked, you said so yourself. We even confirmed one of them personally. The individual rooms should be the same."

Called rooms, but effectively cells. Nothing opened without a key.

"Ugh. Can't be helped. Alright, let's go. Into the labyrinth."

Jeffrey walked with slumped shoulders. But he walked ahead all the same.

On the way, Gyeoul rifled through the advance unit's vehicles. He resupplied the ammo he'd burned through. A few grenades and flashbangs too.

Footnotes:

[1] Atascadero State Hospital, which serves as the setting for this chapter, is the real-world inspiration for Pescadero State Mental Hospital in Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), the facility where Sarah Connor is held in the film. Readers familiar with T2 may recognize the atmosphere the author is drawing on.

[2] The California Republic flag retrieved alongside the Stars and Stripes is the Bear Flag, the official state flag of California, featuring a grizzly bear and the words "California Republic."

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